On a Whim, I Completely Changed the Site Theme

On Friday, I downloaded Windows 8. Not long after starting to mess with it, I realized that its simplified display theme could potentially work really well for my guides. I experimented with some visual changes, and immediately decided, for better or for worse, to dive in and revise the theme. It’s pretty much all I’ve done all weekend, and I’m very proud of the result. Of course, I have no ability to remain objective, so hopefully it doesn’t actually suck.

The visual change isn’t really the most significant improvement to the site. I’ve simplified a few features that were overly complicated and interfering with site development – such as the static table columns and the FFXIII chapter select. The biggest revision, however, was with cards.

I liked the original card style, but it really just seemed too busy. Two different textures and colors, plus an arbitrary type icon, will do that. The new style removes a lot of the unnecessarily complicated distractions. The card header is now a solid color, which represents the type of the card – weapons are a dark red across all guides, armor is dark blue, and so on. The actual card color is a standard grey in most cases, though I’ve added colors to the FF (NES) and Golvellius guides, and will be adding more. These colors should be fairly obvious – for instance, in FF1 they generally call out elemental affinities. The idea is to give an immediate visual cue to important information.

There’s still plenty more to do, but I wanted to get this up before the hurricane hit. It’s a cool change, and I just needed to show it off before the world comes to a screeching halt or whatever.